


Antiform Haunting (That Which Slips Through Your Fingers)

by blae_kitta



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bad Puns, Character Death, Death, Drug Use, Ghosts, Hallucinations, How Do I Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 14:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21429535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blae_kitta/pseuds/blae_kitta
Summary: The night after killing Oswald, Ed is having trouble sleeping, and a hallucination visits him; an explanation for his use of the white pills, doubling as taking the song hallucination-Oswald sang to him as a literal interaction.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Kudos: 24





	Antiform Haunting (That Which Slips Through Your Fingers)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started out much smaller and then ran away from me as I wrote it. Originally I wrote it cause I liked the idea that the lyrics in the song hallucination Oswald sang to Ed was based off of an actual encounter. Also I decided it would be fun to add a bunch of, well, ocean/water puns cause why not.
> 
> Also I originally wrote it (small form) as more of a prose-poem format, a paragraph that's sentences were more poem than prose which I worked off for the thematic feel of the peice. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy the read!

That night, Edward slept in that great house alone. More aptly, one could say he didn't, as he lay awake upon his bed, sleep as absent as possible as his emotions tore at him. It was quiet, other then the sounds of the old house shifting and settling, and the slight rustling of curtains caused by a light breeze that drifted through the manor.

This silence sat poorly with him, as in the peace his mind replayed over and over the scene at the dock; Oswald's face, as he shot him, as he looked down, his blood beginning to spill out between his fingers. The way he looked as Ed had pushed him gently off the dock and into the ocean. He could still feel the silk of his jacket against his fingertips, as he pushed him; and lying there upon his bed, he almost wished he had turned his fingers, snagging the cloth before it could fall away beneath his own hands. But he had not done that, and clearly within his mind, he remembered how Oswald had sank into the dirty brackish water; how it briefly blossomed crimson around him, to only fade just as quick, both Oswald and the colour swallowed up into the murky gloom.

And yet it was in the end, the words, the truths that the other man had feverishly delivered, a confessional of manipulation from a man desperate to cling to life, that made his skin crawl at his own actions.

Ed shifted in the bed, moving to the other side, seeking the cold. The expensive mattress, usually almost excessively comfortable, felt uncomfortable.

Back at his elaborate set up with the car, there was a specific aspect that he did not like, and did not settle well with him- did any of it settle well with him, he wondered? It was the way Oswald had refused to give him up. That compounded his foolish feelings of guilt and insecurity, feelings that he should have gotten rid of. But it still clung there, mixed within it all, swirling in his brain, a nexus of chaos.

"I don't know" he had stuttered out, foiled in his own game. It would be easier to forget, to pretend it didn't happen. 

Ed swung himself out of bed. He could not take the way his thoughts pressed in upon him, alone within the room lying there a passive victim. He paced the room, frustrated and unsure. He had made a decision. He had carried it out, and yet, and yet, the unsurity that he had expected to vanish as the deed was done remained, clinging with even more tenacity. It was all supposed to make him feel better; but instead, it just ate him up as it had before, devouring him now with an increased fervour.

It would be easier to forget.

He decisively swiveled himself in his pacing route to toss open the door and left to get himself a stiff drink from the office below. Perhaps, he mused, it would allow him some semblance of sleep. 

And so, he slipped through the silvery moonlit hallway in all its cold tones, making his way toward the stairs. But in his passing through, his feet silent upon the plush softness of rug beneath him, he froze. 

Beside him was Oswald's door. 

The writhing feeling within his chest multiplied. He wondered, turning slightly to open the door, if Oswald had held some liquor in his bedroom. His hand hovered above the door knob.

Another deep set feeling swept through him.

Standing here, just outside Oswald's room, it could have been any of those nights when they had worked together. Quite commonly, Ed would stay up late going over papers, Oswald having retired earlier. And often enough on those nights, upon a whim as he himself retired, he would pause and crack the door open, to check in on the other man. He would always be curled up in his sleep, dark hair sticking up in more unruly tufts than usual; his normally pinched face, if able to be seen from the door, was relaxed for once, no fit of emotion stretched across it. Ed had found the check-ins soothing, and had always slept more soundly upon those nights. He had a suspicion it was linked to the days when he had nursed Oswald back to health, when they had first gotten acquainted with each other.

Now, as he stood there, in front of the door, those memories weighed heavily upon him, melancholy and guilt compounding. Rather ironic, those memories. Even the advice he had given Oswald in those days; further layers of irony. It somehow made it even worse.

He sighed and closed his hand in upon itself and withdrew from the door. He was so tired of the emotions, of all of it. The dead could keep their room unpillaged for one night at least.

Turning, he descended the stairs to slip into the office. There, he gathered the decanter and a glass, and began to make his way back to his room. As he passed the door again, his eyes flicked towards it briefly before steadfastly focusing upon the carpet beneath his feet; those linked memories, once cherished were now smeared with guilt; a repulsive horror to avoid as much as possible.

He lay himself down upon the bed again, propped up slightly by cushions; and he began to drink his way through the half empty decanter. The liquor burned as it slipped down his throat. He liked that feeling, and so he continued to drink; sip after sip, which became glass after glass. The burning lessened as he continued to drink, and more and more he chased after that feeling, until the decanter stood empty upon his bedside table. 

In the emptiness left by the burning, he became aware that the alcohol didn't quite erase his sense of loss and guilt. Rather, it distanced it from himself, the distance allowing it to grow, until it expanded and eclipsed everything else, and it was only then that he felt numb towards it. 

“That would do," he murmured as he lay there limply, his thoughts slowing in it's drunken haze. 

A few minutes passed, the clock within his room ticking obnoxiously into the otherwise silence. Then he sighed, for even in that emptiness he felt unfulfilled. Even through it all, there was still an edge.

“What do I do now, Oswald?" He lashed out, finally voicing his thoughts; it was a question made half in anger and half in a tired desperation, the way a man who has no answers is angry at his own helplessness. "You bastard always had a plan of some sort." 

The words echoed in the silence, the anger within loud and disruptive, a product of the melancholy that had settled within his bones. The room quieted again. And in this silence, he gently whispered a confession into the night;

“I would just like to see you again."

The shadows, thickly gathered in the corners of the room remained silent, no answer forthcoming.

He sighed again into the oppressive noiselessness, passing the glass onto the bedside table. The alcohol was, to Ed's comfort, growing upon him in sleepiness, the thoughts again growing fuzzy and less distracting than before. The white static of his melancholy was an ocean within himself, easy enough to drown in, and so he let himself sink into the static darkness that overwhelmed anything else. Unconsciousness was a welcome emptiness. 

***

He awoke just as he had fallen asleep, sprawled out upon the bed, the bedside table occupied by the empty decanter and empty glass. Only, there was a singular difference- there was a figure sitting upon the bed, by his side. Ed stiffened, recognizing the silhouette in the moonlight that streamed through the window. He would recognize it anywhere.

“Oswald," he choked out, the suddenness sending a wave of fear and longing through him, the tones slipping out into his outburst. 

Oswald turned to look at him, his eyes distant, his dark hair plastered to his forehead from the dampness of his figure; his clothes dripped salt water upon the bed sheets, and strands of kelp were caught in his hair and his clothing. In the silvery light, a vibrant colour upon the dark clothing Oswald wore caught his eye; on his vest, a scarlet stain was evident. His stomach flipped unpleasantly.

Then something flickered in Oswald's eyes, and they became sharp and focused. Anger burst forth upon his countenance, his face twisting, as he descended into one of his violent passions that he was so well known for. For once it was directed towards Ed.

“YOU SHOT ME." Oswald shouted, grabbing Ed's shirt pulling him forward, aggressively invading his personal space.

“You shot me, and then let me drown, you fool" he hissed.

But as suddenly as he had flown into his anger, he quieted down, anger draining away from his face. All that was left was a tired expression, one that was an amalgamation of sorrow and disappointment.

“I loved you, and you killed me," he softly whispered.

Ed laughed at that, sarcastic, defensive, disbelieving.

“Oh, please, what are you laughing about?" Oswald spat, anger returning in full force. “Is it the possibility that I loved you? Or that you find killing me amusing. Because, oh yes, killing me did nothing to you, how funny." 

He snapped his arm out rigidly to point at the side table and it's contents, face contorted in a scathing righteous anger.

“Look at yourself, you're a man who couldn't fall asleep so you drank until you could.

“Oh and why? Because you didn't even know if it was the right thing to do for yourself, and in the end after all your self-convincing, you still ‘aren't sure'. AND NEWSFLASH ED. It WASN'T.

“As for your disbelief in my love?" He then pulled his face into a caricature, splaying his hands out hands dramatically, voice a singsong mockery. “A don't know what that means, that I wouldn't give you up. That I'd change for you- would it kill you to admit to yourself that I actually loved you?"

He laughed then, harsh and brief, echoing the one Ed had himself had made.

“Who knows. Perhaps. Look at you and the way you're heading. Doing that killed a part of you. See? I knew it. I was right. I know you."

“Shut UP" Ed raged in return, finally catching his tongue. He scrabbled his arms upon the bed, attempting to sit up properly. But his body betrayed him and he failed, and so he remained in Oswald's clutches. 

“Just go away." He muttered, anger and guilt boiling inside him.

“P-lease?" Oswald drawled out, raising his eyebrows. “Really? Why am I here then Ed. It's not like you haven't missed me- oh that ‘I would like to see you again~.'" 

Oswald swiped an imaginary tear from his face, before his voice went dry. 

“Touching really if you hadn't shot me and shoved me off a dock to drown.

“Oh and would you like to know my favourite thing about this all? Not only have you invited me here, but you've literally dreamed me up. I'm literally created by you." He sneered then, leaning closer, eyes glittering with a veneer of contempt.

“And really, that just makes this version of me know you even better doesn't it?"

Ed growled, angry. 

Oswald laughed again, and leaned close, lips brushing against the outer shell of Eds ear as he whispered to him;

“This means I know those secrets that you vehemently deny that you have shoved into the corner of your mind. The reason that all this truly transpired. Because of something you so desperately avoided admitting, avoided accepting, that you had to kill me.

“And really, wouldn't it have been much easier for you to just admit that you loved me back."

Ed froze beneath him, lost within the feeling of horror, of entirely comprehending but the desperate conscious choice not to slipping through his fingers, fading away, becoming immaterial.

At the statement Oswald leant back, face now level and across from Ed's own. Ed's brain registered the movement, attention distractedly focused upon him. As Oswald deigned to remain silent, eyes searching his own, Ed became intensely and uncomfortably physically aware of their positions; Oswald's body was pressed against his, an arm crossing his chest and pinning him into the mattress, a cold seeping into him, settling into his bones as the dampness of Oswald's clothing soaked into his own. 

He met Oswalds level, piercing gaze, and in that moment, a drop of sea water dripped from the other mans face onto his own, the icy chill of it sending a shiver through him, his senses heightened from the close quarters. A nervousness and alarm gathered in the pit of his stomach, as they met eye to eye, which only grew in nervousness and warmth as Oswald's slanted his eyes down, gazing up at him through his lashes, becoming hooded and heated. 

Then he flicked his gaze down abruptly, fixing it upon the taller man's lips, and he leant down, closing the small distance between them, and their mouths met. 

The action, the coldness of Oswalds mouth startled Edward, who remained frozen, confused and alarmed by the touch. It dimly registered in his brain, that Oswald lips were soft even through the cold. 

Reaction delayed, Ed gasped into Oswalds mouth, tasting the salty brine of the ocean. Feelings battled within his breast, a desire he had willfully chosen to be ignorant for so long, the one that had been uttered in the silence of the night, and a horror of dread and self loathing. 

In that paralytic quiescence in the brief moment of turmoil, he fixated desperately upon something within his view; Oswald's eyelashes. They were delicately long and dark against the pale skin of his cheek, a slight rouge blush from his own warmth adorning them. Then they moved, like the shutters within a camera, swift and sure as they revealed the vividly piercing pale green eyes peering through the dark lashes, the gaze predatory now, the pretense of sly coaxing dropped. It was at this, that Ed broke; heat pooled within his stomach, hot and unbearable. He kissed back hungrily. 

Even upon the short time that Oswald had begun to touch the other, warmth was steadily returning to him, his lips becoming warm, supple and softer than before; his cheeks bloomed with the flush of life, and seemingly their clothes dried, the cold clinging damp evaporating away as they lay there together.

Ed pulled back briefly, and they lay there, gasping like a fish upon land, eyes open and agape at the other, irises wide from the sight of each other and the patterned dark which surrounded them. Ed drank in all the details, ever hungrier for more, as the moonlight streamed through the window illuminating Oswald in a checkered pattern of silver and shadow. He raised his hand and traced the familiar sharp features; although he had denied it, those same features previously had caused him to lie awake until late at night. Those nights where he had desperately tried to ignore those thoughts that plagued him. The lighting exaggerated the features, and somehow in that gaunt form, Ed found him even more beautiful; and he pulled Oswald down, pressing their lips together again. 

It was passionate; both aggressive, a battle for dominance; hands raking through mussed hair. Then Oswald shifted his position, one possessive hand coming up to clutch the Ed's shirt as another drifted further downward. 

Ed moaned in response; and Oswald smirked into their kiss. 

And then, he was gone. 

***

Edward lay upon the bed, alone within the moonlight. The house was empty, and he felt hollower than before, the rush of emotions returning from it's muted corner he had penned them into. 

The heat within his stomach was still there. 

He stared blankly upwards, the light that now poured into the room seeming watery and colourless, the shadows that clothed the ceiling and corners of the room only darker because of it. He tried to recall Oswald's face, but, somehow, it seemed to elude him, slipping away into the recesses of his mind. The Oswald he attempted to grasp was always wrong or off, details incorrect in tiny frustrating manners. He could only recall completely, briefly in the moments after he awoke, the way Oswald's lips felt upon his own. He wondered if that was really how they felt.

*** 

The morning sun found Edward wrapped in his robe sitting sleepless and exhausted in the living room. The fire on the hearth was dead and cold; he had not lit it even in the drafty chill of the room. No light at all lit the room in it's previous warm cheeriness, and shadows clung densely to the corners like cobwebs. 

Across from the chair that he was sitting in, upon a easel, was the mayoral painting. The painting of Oswald and him. But it was not his own portrayal in the painting that mattered, as it was not himself that he had focused upon; rather, he had fixed his gaze in an obsessive and desperate manner upon Oswald, eyes tracing, over and over again the lines of the other man's figure, his face. He could not turn away; for when he did, Oswald's face seemed to slip away from him, and he compulsively would turn back. 

If he could just see him once more, then perhaps...

Edward sighed, watching impassively as the sunlight shifted through the blinds to illuminate Oswalds face. The way it fell across his features in the painting were very different from the way the moonlight had- Edward cut the thought off, losing himself again in the meaningless repetition of form, lost within his other safer thoughts.

The sun slid over Oswald's face, across the floor and upon the opposite wall, before Ed forced himself to retrieve food. He stood up unsteady on his feet; he told himself he would be swift, and tentatively, he left the room, slipping out into the hallway. And it was there, that he froze.

He was alarmed- excited- by a movement; but it was only himself, his reflection in a mirror. Even in his initial disappointment, he eagerly watched the mirror; patient and expectant for a second figure standing beside him, like the many others that had visited him before. But, even in the long length of time as he stood in front of the mirror, his goal of food forgotten, his figure remained solitary. His mind, for once, did not conjure a hallucination. 

And so, he returned to the portrait, and in that manner he passed the first day; and the adjoining night and it's fitful sleep gave him no respite either, both gifting him no dreams to wet his appetite. And so in a similar way followed the days after, and as he passed that mirror in the hallway, his reflection would gaze back at him, his face growing thin and sallow and haggard, his eyes glistening feverishly above deepening and darkening bags.

And so, finding no release, Ed eventually left the mansion, forsaking briefly the portrait. In his excursion he visited a pharmacy; and when he returned to the manor, nestled within his breast pocket was a small tin box filled with little white capsules.


End file.
